Japan Trip 2012 - Harajuku & Shibuya Day 5,6

Back to blogging about my trip before I get too far behind. Day 5 & 6 I decided to compile into one post because on day 6, we went back to Harajuku because we had some unfinished business (actually, I still have unfinished business there and in Shibuya too LOL orz||). Overall I didn't take many photos and I didn't bring my big camera with me. Too busy taking in everything and shopping!! *_*

I swear Japan has the funniest advertisements..and caution signs. We spotted this on the Tokyo Metro subway. There were more amusing posters telling people not to smoke and not to rush for the train, that we spotted inside of the subway train itself (I think it was in Osaka..don't remember) but Jillian got photos of those.

We had to switch to three different Tokyo Metro subway lines in order to get to Harajuku (according to the route that the Jorudan site gave me) but I noticed later that the Tokyo Metro Ginza Line (the line we often used) went all the way from Asakusa station (our starting point) to Shibuya station... so I wonder if we could've saved some time and just rode the train straight to Shibuya... but regardless, it took us a good 30min train ride to get there.

We first walked around H&M and Forever21 because Laforet wasn't open yet and noticed that some of the clothes were different from those in Canada... but we saved our wallets for Laforet!

Actually, we walked along Takeshita Street first, I think. Basically it's a street lined with trendy clothing and shoe stores, some featuring punk/lolita clothing. Some brands I remembered were Pink Latte, Listen Flavor, Liz Lisa... and also Bodyline! It was on the second floor of another shop. It was super crowded though and the lineup was really long so I looked around and didn't get anything. I saw a necklace I really liked from Pink Latte but ended up not getting that, either...they had nice clothes, but seemed to be a little..kiddish? The entire street was crowded with people, I think it was because it was a Sunday... ><

I think I took this after shopping around at Laforet... There was no place to sit inside the mall. Seriously you'd think that after so many floors of shopping, there would be benches or something >< So we went outside and half sat/half stood on the metal bars that lined the street...and just people-watched to kill time and rest lol.

The basement level of Laforet had a whole bunch of punk & lolita brands I recognized. Alice and the Pirates, Metamorphose, Angelic Pretty... they all had small shops there. I saw the Unicorn bag from Angelic Pretty that was on my wishlist... but in person, it didn't look as great as I thought and I somehow wasn't compelled to spend that much on it D; Actually, everything was really expensive... and I didn't buy any big ticket items on this day. It was only after shopping at Shibuya and coming out empty handed again that we both decided to go back to Laforet and do some damage!! Dx

We went to Shibuya the day after and went to see the famous statue of Hachiko the dog...it was tucked away near Shibuya station. Below is a pic of the street crossing and Shibuya 109 (another circular department store like Laforet, but I would say that Laforet has more things targeted towards younger teens whereas Shibuya is mostly young ladies' fashion, with less punk stuff)

 

Here we're on our way to a theme restaurant (because I wanted to go to at least one). This street in Shibuya has a lot restaurants. Many ramen/noodle shops have vending machines outside. You press what you want on the machine, pay for it, then get a ticket and you take it inside to give to the staff/chef, then you sit down and they bring you your food. A funny story... we went to a noodle place in Harajuku that had one of these machines, but it was placed near the back of the restaurant behind the seats. We totally didn't see it but the waitress was really helpful and showed us what to do, she spoke perfect English as well. Things would be a lot more embarrassing for us if the service wasn't as top notch as it was and if people weren't always so polite and nice...it's something I'll definitely miss about Japan >__<!

 

This was at a prison-style themed restaurant in Shibuya called "The Lock Up". I looked around on the web about theme restaurants and this seemed like a good one to go to. They only open after 5pm and the elevator didn't go down to the basement floor so we had to take the stairs...the entrance was really scary and was like a maze!! We stumbled in and the hostess asked if we had reservations... I didn't know we needed one! So she told us to wait, but she returned a few moments later to show us to our table. One person gets handcuffed by her (I made Jillian get handcuffed LOL) and you're lead to your table, which is closed off behind iron bars. We were given complementary bread sticks and some dipping cream cheese. Food servers are all dressed in striped prison jammies. Despite the theme, the food is actually quite good and it's tapas style similar to Guu. The food all have funny names, for example my drink was called something like "fake marriage" and the description was like "the union between Orange and Mango was a fraud" etc.. lol. Yes, we are drinking from beakers!! :D

 

Our designated server (he was quite good looking...not gonna lie) gave us an English menu but we ended up just pointing to the photos on the Japanese menu. Another thing I'll miss about Japan is that the food actually looks exactly like (if not better) than the photos on the menu!! The food was really good but at the end they forgot to get us dessert, yet they still charged us for it...and that took a while to fix because we kept on pressing the call button but the our server did not show up for about 20min. We have a 2hr seating time, and in the middle of the meal {spoiler} a person dressed in a scary mask comes around to each table to scare you until he is finally caught and arrested and put back into prison....pretty amusing lol. Our food arrived quickly though..there was a drink that consisted of a beaker and test tubes of colourful liquid for you to mix, but we decided not to get that. We did get the takoyaki and croquette dishes which are "Russian Roulette" style where one of them is loaded with wasabi (actually it was loaded with hot sauce) which could be a fun dish to get if you were eating from a group and everyone had to take one... but we just ended up prying everything apart to see which one was loaded lol.

The Lock Up charges a 525yen cover charge per person and a 10% service fee automatically added to your bill. Our total added up to be 5,544yen (no tip, since it's not the custom in Japan) and we were too full for dessert. This fit comfortably into our food budget but aside that, I wasn't sure if the service was supposed to be this slow, or if we were just being ignored because we didn't have reservations (or some other reason) but given the chance, we're not likely to go back to The Lock Up again. I would recommend it to others though. Theme restaurants are fun and different, and I'm eager to try others (like the vampire one!!) in the future!